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Stop New Nuclear in the press

A specialist engineer who worked at Hinkley Point nuclear power station for almost 30 years has attacked the nuclear industry’s approach to safety and predicted that a Fukushima-type disaster in the UK was “almost inevitable”.

Peter Smith’s comments were made at and after a weekend rally in Bridgwater against the proposed new Hinkley C nuclear power station.

French company EDF Energy, which runs the Hinkley B plant and has applied for planning permission for the new twin-reactor station, strongly rebuts Mr Smith’s claims.

Anti-nuclear demonstrators are planning to invade the site of EDF’s proposed new power station at Hinkley in Somerset on Monday.

The “mass trespass” is the culmination of a weekend of protests against the £2bn plant where Laing O’Rourke/Buouygues will be the main contractor and a Kier/Bam joint venture is gearing up to start a £100m groundworks contract.

The Stop New Nuclear campaign said it is looking for “people who are prepared to be arrested”.

The campaigners said: “Our aim is to make the trespass as safe and dignified as possible.

Anti-nuclear campaigners from all over Britain began a weekend-long protest in Bridgwater yesterday, against the proposed construction nearby of the Hinkley C nuclear power station.

The main aim of Saturday's rally was to raise awareness within the community that, should the project get the go-ahead from the government, Hinkley Point will become a storage facility for tons of high-level radioactive spent fuel for over 100 years and the threat that might represent to Somerset and the UK at large.

Anti-nuclear activists will attempt a mass trespass tomorrow to stop construction of a new nuclear power plant in Somerset.

Demonstrators at a protest camp outside the Hinkley Point construction site were making last-minute preparations today as the Morning Star went to print, with an operation planned for the early hours of Monday morning.

The Stop New Nuclear Alliance's Camilla Berens told the Star the camp was a mix of veteran campaigners and young people - and that for many it was their first taste of civil disobedience.

CAMPAIGNERS protesting against nuclear power are basing themselves at Hinkley Point for a two-day rally.

After marching through Bridgwater with imitation radioactive waste barrels, the group has moved to land outside the power station, setting up camp at North Wick Moor.

Nigel Cann, Hinkley Point C construction director, said: “We respect the rights of individuals to peaceful and lawful protest, however, we are also mindful of the pressure these events can place on the local community with whom we have strong links.

Anti-nuclear campaigners from all over Britain are converging on Somerset today for a mass rally to be followed on Monday by a ‘mass trespass’ at the proposed site of the Hinkley C nuclear power station.

Today hundreds of protesters are due to help to wheel symbolic barrels of radioactive waste through the streets of nearby Bridgwater.

Campaigners say the rally aims to highlight the stockpile of used nuclear fuel that will be stored at Hinkley Point if the new power station gets the green light.

Protesters from all over the UK have gathered in Somerset at the site earmarked for the first of a new generation of nuclear power stations.

People began to arrive at the camp on North Wick Moor in the early hours of this morning. They are planning to scale the fence around land being cleared for the controversial Hinkley C power plant.

Tomorrow symbolic barrels of radioactive waste will be wheeled through the streets of nearby Bridgwater to highlight the stockpile of high-level nuclear waste that will be stored at Hinkley C if it gets the green light.

Sunday marked the first anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster caused by an earthquake and tsunami that swept across Japan killing 20,000 people.

At the weekend two survivors of the disaster, Makoto Ishiyama and his wife Akiko Ishiyama, shared their experience of the disaster with protesters at the site of a potential new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

It is seen as the new front line in the fight against nuclear power in Britain, with numerous protests and legal challenges having targeted the proposed "Hinkley Point C" plant.

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Stop New Nuclear is a campaign to stop new nuclear power stations and is an alliance of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND Cymru, Stop Nuclear Power Network UK, Kick Nuclear, South West Against Nuclear, Shutdown Sizewell, Sizewell Blockaders, Trident Ploughshares, Stop Hinkley, and Rising Tide UK